


Some Things You Let Go

by puppyblue



Series: AU!Corvo [1]
Category: Dishonored (Video Games)
Genre: Abandonment, Asexual Daud (Dishonored), Corvo is So Done, Guilt, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Other, Out of Character, Prompt Fic, Prompt Fill, kinkmeme fill
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-22
Updated: 2018-01-13
Packaged: 2019-02-13 06:26:44
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,467
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12978030
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/puppyblue/pseuds/puppyblue
Summary: In which Corvo decides he doesn't want to die on a one-man suicide run and fucks off to Serkonos instead....Daud should probably find somewhere else to retire.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> For this prompt on the kinkmeme:
> 
> What if Corvo wasn't as loyal to Jessamine as everyone seems to assume? He protected her because that was his job, and he made nice with her kid because that was also his job. So after he's freed from Coldridge, he realizes that rather than go on a crazy quest that will probably end with him dead either way, he'd much prefer to leave Dunwall and never look back. So instead of going after the High Overseer, he pays off a smuggler to take him far far away, gets a cabin on a beach somewhere and works on his tan.
> 
> (I wouldn't be at all opposed if his beach cabin happened to be right next to a beach cabin where Daud decided to retire)

Corvo has always had a plan in place.

He’d hoped not to need it, of course. And after a while, he’d honestly stopped believing that he would. But living his formative years rough on the streets of Karnaca had left him with several deep-set habits that decades of safety and luxury had not been able to shake. And really, he can only be thankful for it now.

The Empress is dead, his reputation is ruined, and he does not plan to stick around and see just how much worse his circumstances can get.

So when Samuel the boatman drops him off in the Distillery District and wishes him luck, he waves him off and slips away. (If he feels guilty about abandoning any of these loyalists, then it is probably Samuel—he seems like the honest, earnest sort and those are rare enough these days).

He keeps away from the Wall of Light, from Clavering Boulevard and the Bottle Street gang. He stays _well_ away from the Overseers, despite his loathing of Campbell.

He moves instead around the edges of the district and eventually slips past the quarantine, aided by his familiarity with the streets and now, just slightly, by the new strangeness gracing the back of his hand. Then he moves quickly, mostly along the rooftops to dodge patrols and civilians alike, and finds all his old caches of money and supplies, left so long unattended.

The Royal Protector receives a generous enough wage, as hazardous as the job is, and Corvo has never been so foolish as to store all of his coin in the Tower.

Some caches are missing, of course—after so long, it is inevitable that some would have been discovered. But many more he hid well, up high and out of the way, and soon he has retrieved enough coin that he does not bother going for the rest.

He makes for the shoreline instead. Many of the bridges are broken now, and so he finds where the path crumbles into the sea and only the supports remain, and there he waits. A ship will be by soon enough—a whaler, a trader, it doesn’t matter as long as they’re willing to take a bribe.

It’s time for him to leave Dunwall and somehow he doesn’t think he’ll be coming back.

* * *

 

It’s not that he doesn’t _care_.

He’d been Jessamine’s Protector for years; of course he’d come to care for her. Just…not in way so many had seemed to assume, the way the courtiers had so liked to gossip about. They’d been friends as well as ruler and vassal, good friends by the end there. But nothing more.

It could have been different, perhaps, if he’d made different choices. Taken different steps. But he's never seen the point in what-ifs.

Still, he takes a moment, out on that spar of broken street over the cold of the river, to examine the Mark now gracing the back of his hand. It hadn't been something he'd asked for—hadn't even been something he'd wanted—but the power in it is undeniable. And for a moment he considers.

But after that moment, he drops his hand back with a scoff. The Loyalists had wanted an assassin, a knife to send against their enemies with minimal risk to themselves. They hadn't seem to care that his training involved defending a target, not assassinating one. Somehow, they had justified sending a single man against the might of the Watch and the Overseers combined.

He can't think of any man who would take those odds.

The Outsider's gifts and tricks will not change the fact that he is one against an army—and he _hurts,_ bone deep, and not all of it physical. So while he'd loved Jessamine and Emily in his own way, he's not going to throw his life away, and that's exactly what this suicide mission would do.

His mind is made up.

* * *

 

The Loyalists had given him a coat—fine fabrics, but too large. Tailored for the man they'd hoped to free, not the one they’d found. It had been far too nice in comparison to the ruin that Dunwall had become and so he'd dropped it along the streets, leaving him only in a rough shirt and trousers borrowed from the Pub.

So, between his clothes, his hair, and his starved appearance, he looks nothing like the Lord Protector. He simply looks like a desperate refuge, like so many following this path. The smugglers take him on board without qualms, except to demand a steep price for passage. He haggles just to keep up appearances, but doesn't fight it too much. Getting out is his main concern, not money.

They give him a space down below with the other lucky souls who haggled their way on board and though it is small and damp, it is still a step up from his cell in Coldridge. He doesn't mind spending most of the voyage down there, but he does have something he wants to do first.

He waits until midnight, when the shadows are deep on the deck and he can slip past the night watch without too much trouble. Then he sneaks to the side of the ship, takes the still-beating Heart out of his pocket, and drops it into the waters below.

He'd heard it speak exactly once and doesn't want to hear it again. He can't.

He—

He can’t.

He’d wondered, as he’d planned it, if such treatment of the Outsider’s _gift_ would draw the god’s ire. If his refusal of everything it offered would be considered a personal insult. But there is no reaction from the sea below him, no chill of the Void in the air.

If the Outsider is displeased, it does not care enough to make it known.

He slips back towards his berth below deck, dodging the few men there and ignoring the almost physical urge to look towards the mainland. He swallows against his queasiness, his breath short and his skin tight and twitching around his bones. He’d thrown up all the food the smugglers had given him earlier. 

Coldridge still clings to him like a film of oil, and the thought of ending up there again makes it much easier not to look back.

“…friggin’ hellhole...never goin’ back there again…” One of the deckhands grumbles under his breath, and Corvo privately agrees. He’d had good years in Dunwall, better than most on the whole, but they are not enough to overcome the darkness settling there now. And in the end, his heart has always belonged to the sun and spice of Serkonos.

He is ready to go home.

* * *

 

He half-expects the Heart to reappear in his pocket the next morning.

It doesn't.

* * *

 

He disembarks in Karnaca—sentimental, perhaps, but he does it anyway.

The ground sways under his feet after weeks at sea, but he braces himself in place and draws in the clean air, turning his face up to the sun. It had always felt such a weak warmth in Dunwall, on the rare occasions it had managed to peek past the clouds, but the light here feels scorching on his face, glaring red through his closed eyes.

It feels like a welcome.

He doesn’t settle at first—can’t settle, with fear still crawling beneath his skin like rats, sending him looking over his shoulder every two steps. He looks little like the Lord Protector on the wanted posters—and there are far fewer of those posted here—but he’d rather be too cautious than not enough.

There are too many Overseers for comfort. The Mark on his hand stays hidden beneath cloth.

But time passes, slowly, quietly. There is none of the desperation here, none of the fear that had saturated the very air of Dunwall. The people speak of the seat of the Empire with grimness, but mostly move about their lives, only waiting for news.

Slowly, very slowly, he relaxes.

He’d kept on the move, rooftop to rooftop, sleeping in alleys and balconies, snatching food and coin here and there. Eventually, though, he slows down, tries to eat a little more instead of hoarding it all away, and keeps a careful eye out.

It takes a while to find an offer that fits, but patience bears out. The house is barely more than a hut, ancient and falling to pieces. It stands near to the cliffs and the ocean, but hours from any town or convenience, too far for most beyond fishermen to bother with. He pays the asking price without much thought.

He’s hot and sweating when he gets there after hours of walking, dust caking his now-ragged shirt and pants. But the air there is cool, salt and sand, and the only noises are from the wind and the sea, and his own movements. No people here to put his back up.

There’s a water pump outside and a bit of furniture left inside—a table, some chairs, a cabinet and a rickety old bed. No food, but he has enough in his pack to last him a while. The whole place will need weeks of work, but that will come later.

He leaves his pack on the floor, burrows into the bed, curls tight under the blankets, and does not come out for a long, long time.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Took this as an exercise to try and get out of my writing comfort zone, since I have trouble picturing this Corvo properly. It's...going well, I suppose? Not going to be a long fic though.
> 
> Title taken from Florence and the Machine, "Various Storms and Saints"


	2. in order to live

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah, I don't even know. I'm Daud/Corvo trash, Corvo is too tired, and Daud is too used to picking up strays. My excuses.  
> Not beta'd, so please let me know if you see any mistakes!

He tries not to let the guilt sink in.

It’s pointless, anyway. There’s nothing he can change now and, asked to do it all over again, he’d make the same choice. So there’s _no point_ when all it does is drag him down and make him wallow in his failures.

When really, it’s just a sop to make him feel better about himself. At least he _feels bad_ about abandoning the girl. As though it matters.

No. Better to just accept what he’s done and move on. And he tries.

The house is a mess. Dust and water leak in through the roof, wind slips in through the walls, and sometimes the floor creaks so much he’s afraid he’s about to fall through it. He turns his energy to repairs, though he has little idea of how to go about it. He improvises.

He spends his days working until he sweats, then trots down the cliffs to wash off in the ocean. There, he stretches out on the sun-warmed sand and tries to let the heat scorch the memory of Dunwall from his bones. Sometimes it almost works.

His repair jobs aren’t very good, don’t stand up for long. He doesn’t really mind.

He stays away from the towns for a while. They hold little appeal, now—he always feels hunted in the crowds. He has enough food stored away that he can hold out for a while, longer than another man might have been able to manage. He doesn’t eat as much as he used to, can’t seem to shake the nausea when he tries.

Eventually, though, he has to make the trip, when his stores run low and his meager repair supplies disappear. And by then, though the thought of people still makes him tense, he is rather tired of only his own voice for company. Isolation has its own drawbacks.

The first time he makes the trip, he moves slow and keeps high, staying out of eyesight when possible. He buys food that will keep, a few new shirts and trousers, and the locals don’t seem to suspect anything odd about him. It still makes his skin twitch and his heart beat too fast.

But it’s a matter of acclimation. He tries again, and again, and settles into walking back to civilization at least once a month, picking up the scant news from noticeboards and restocking his supplies. He still has a bit of coin left and when that’s gone, well…he’d never lost the knack of pickpocketing.

He never feels quite effortless among people—can’t help thinking of what they’d do, if they knew who he was and what he’d done—but as he goes longer and longer without recognition, the sharp edges of fear start to dull.

One day, he thinks, he’ll be able to walk through a market square and it won’t even feel like a battlefield.

* * *

 

He doesn’t realize what sets him on edge, at first.

It’s a town he’s familiar with—not big enough to be a city, not provincial enough that his appearance there would be noted. It’s a comfortable enough place, as much as he can be comfortable, anyway.

But something itches at him, raises the hair on his neck. An instinct, a warning. He takes a second look.

He almost misses the man on the rooftops, crouched low as he is, but his silhouette is dark against the blue of the sky. He looks to be just watching, not searching for anything in particular, but Corvo shifts carefully out of his line of sight anyway.

Few think to look up and use the roofs, unless they’re crooks. Not that Corvo judges, considering, it’s just…something about this one is ringing the alarm in the back of his mind, louder still now that he’s in sight.

He slips closer, slowly and carefully, not looking too close or standing still too long, until he can make out the shadow of stubble on the man’s jaw and the deep line of a scar across his eye—

—wait, _shit_ —

He presses his back to the wall of the nearest building, out of sight, a cold sweat on his skin and his pulse clawing at his ears. He forces himself to breathe.

He looks again.

It’s definitely Daud.

He doesn’t remember the man so much from their one and only encounter. That day has blurred in his mind, scattered into brief impressions by the panic and grief of the moment, and later by the months of pain and exhaustion. The most he remembers of that Daud is the red coat and the sword, and the coat is missing here.

But all those years of protecting Jessamine—he’d known the big players. Daud’s face had been one of the most notorious in the city. He’s not mistaken.

Impulses spark and contradict each other—run, stay, grab him, _kill_ him—but Corvo doesn’t know what the assassin is here for. Doesn’t know what to expect. Perhaps Burrows had sent him to finally track him down; he needs to know if it’s time to run again.

When he looks again, Daud has moved, but not far. He’s walking instead of Blinking, prowling with the care of someone used to keeping out of sight, and after a moment of fierce debate, Corvo clambers up to the rooftops and sneaks carefully after him.

That doesn’t last very long.

He loses Daud in an alley, when the other man drops down off the rooftops and out of his sight. He’d kept back out of necessity, so it takes him a moment to reach the spot, and when he does, the alley is empty.

He grits his teeth and climbs down, on the off chance of boot prints in the dust. As soon as his feet hit the ground, something wallops into him and he goes down _hard_.

He lands on his back, knocking the air from his lungs and sending stars across his vision. Someone is kneeling on him—hard weight on his chest, painful pressure across his biceps as they shove a sword under his chin—and he gasps for air and looks up at the eaves where Daud must have hung on, waiting for the chance to pounce.

“What do you want?” The assassin demands, deep and grating as a dog’s snarl.

Corvo finally meets his eyes, trying to make the world stop spinning, and so he catches it when the man blinks and freezes stock-still.

 _“You.”_ Daud says, and then he’s up and off, the weight gone.

Corvo takes the chance to cough, dragging in air even as he forces his feet back under him. He isn’t back to full strength, hasn’t kept up practice as he should have, and now he feels it keenly.

Daud still has his sword out, but it’s held loose in his hand, the tip towards the ground, and there are a good ten paces between them now. He stares at Corvo hard, eyes narrow, as though he isn’t sure of what he’s seeing.

“Are you here to kill me?” The man asks finally. He sounds more confused than worried.

Corvo blinks, and matches his confusion. His panicked heartbeat has started to calm back down to wariness. “Funny. I was going to ask you the same thing.”

“Me?” Daud’s head tilts, his brow furrowing, but then he seems to get it. “No, no one sent me. I came here to…hide. To retire.”

He says the word like he’s not quite sure what it means and Corvo’s lip twists without his permission. “Assassins retire?”

Daud actually snorts. “Not usually. And I didn’t really expect to. Figured you’d come and kill me at some point.”

Corvo considers—he does have a sword on his belt. But now that the first flash has faded, his anger is a dulled thing, worn away by months of sun and sweat, time and distance. The man in front of him is a shadow of a life left behind, and killing him won’t change the past any more than guilt will.

…also, in his condition, he’s not _entirely_ sure he would win.

Daud stares at Corvo a moment longer, as though he’s still waiting for it. “Thought you’d cut down everyone involved after you broke out, actually, but then you just…disappeared. Came here?”

Corvo eyes him and then nods once, heavy. “I had a job, and I failed it. Didn’t see the point in dying for a lost cause.”

Daud’s face shifts, indecipherable, and Corvo takes a closer look at him. His clothes are nondescript, the colors dull: without the weapons, the sword and other, better hidden devices, he could have passed as any simple traveler. _To hide_ , he’d said.

“Did you come here to hide from _me?”_ He asks, almost amused, and Daud shrugs.

“From everything.” He says, layered with something like exhaustion. The man looks away when Corvo frowns at him, and finally sheathes his sword. “The Empress was a job for me as well. I just wish I’d failed it.”

There’s a wealth of meaning beneath those words, catching at his ear—an understated self-loathing that Corvo immediately recognizes.. And…it doesn’t _matter_ , no amount of anger or guilt or rationalizing on either of their parts will affect what happened, what is. But…

There’s something here that resonates.

Perhaps that’s why–instead of killing, instead of running, instead of taking the most sensible routes open to him–he gives into the inexplicable urge and says, “Tell me about it.”

* * *

 

Daud is...strange.

He is some odd mix between aggressive and skittish, quick to glare and growl even as his eyes track escape routes and he keeps a buffer of space between them. Despite this, though, he is not unwilling to talk.

He seems almost eager to, actually. He answers Corvo's questions readily enough, and speaks easily of Burrows and Campbell, of the price of an Empress’ life and the men now left behind him in Rudshore's crumbling halls.

He speaks of his own pride and arrogance, and the slow, dreadful slide into horror and regret with a city crumbling around him. Daud's tales of Dunwall are uniformly grim. Corvo feels the sting as he thinks of Emily and the dangers already upon her, but he quashes it as he does every time.

It doesn’t matter.

They wind across the rooftops together, restless above the crowds, while Daud tumbles past the end of his first tale and into the second. He stumbles out words of witches and magic and betrayal, and at this point Corvo isn't even asking questions anymore, just letting the story come as Daud wants to tell it.

It's clear that he _does_ want to–no reason for him to speak so freely otherwise. Corvo has to wonder if Daud is waiting for him to judge, to start the fight the other man has been expecting for months now, or if he speaks for the same reason Corvo himself was honest.

They're both running. They’re both guilty. And neither of them have much right or room for judgement.

He doesn’t feel any better for hearing Daud’s stories. He doesn’t really feel any _worse_. He’s edging mostly towards a familiar numbness, all his memories of Dunwall like some half-forgotten dream. He probably shouldn’t have asked at all. There’s nothing for him here.

He barely notices when Daud stops talking, doesn’t really recall how long they stand on the rooftops in the late afternoon heat, watching the slowly thinning market below. At some point he drags in a deep breath and realizes that Daud is staring at him with something like bemusement, an expression that doesn’t fade when he finally makes eye contact.

“You’ve been staying here?” Daud asks, jerking his head at the rough town below, apparently content to leave the past silent again if Corvo isn’t going to ask more questions.

“No. Up on the Icorb Cliffs.” He says, and then belatedly realizes that he probably shouldn’t have, but…Daud’s had plenty of chances today that he hasn’t taken. And he just can’t rouse himself to _care_.

“And you?” He asks more out of habit than interest. Daud shrugs.

“Haven’t decided.” The assassin replies, eyes sharp. He’s still watching Corvo carefully. “Feel like killing me yet?”

He takes a moment to think about it. The temptation is there, but only just–that sense of resonation, of similarity, has only increased with Daud’s meandering explanations. They’re two broken failures running from things they can’t change. And, more importantly, there’s nothing at all to be gained here.

“No.” He says finally, turning away again, and he finds that he means it.

“Hmm.” Daud watches him a moment longer. Then, when Corvo doesn’t offer him anything more, he turns on his heel and leaves, a flicker of darkness at the edge of the roof that fades away into nothing.

Corvo doesn’t follow him.

* * *

 

That should be the end of it. Somehow, it isn’t.

He’s walking the rooftops of a different town the first time Daud pops up beside him, and he’s so startled that he launches the man off the roof with an entirely unintentional blast of wind. He nearly sends himself over the other side when he trips backwards in surprise.

He stares at his Marked hand for a moment afterwards, appalled. He’s collected a few runes by chance, enjoys the song and the feeling of them, but he hadn’t tried anything past the occasional Blink. This is...new.

And then he runs for it, because he doesn’t really feel like finding out if someone noticed that bit of ridiculousness.

Daud rejoins him two minutes later–at a bit more of a distance this time–irritation in his glare and something like amusement in the set of his mouth. “Was that really necessary?”

“Should be more careful who you sneak up on.” Corvo points out, and then pulls his usual wrapping off his hand to glare at the Mark there. “I didn’t actually mean to do it. I didn’t know I _could._ ”

Daud catches his hand to look and then releases it almost before he can stiffen up. “Well, if you’re going to collect the runes for it, you can’t just pretend it isn’t there. You have to practice, or you’ll just keep lashing out when you’re anxious, and that’s a quick way to get caught.”

He doesn’t much appreciate getting lectured like a raw recruit, but on the other hand, he also doesn’t really know what he’s doing. And by rumor, Daud had been a witch for as long as he’d been an assassin, and he’d been an assassin a long time.

“I’ll think about it.” He says, noncommital as he rewraps his hand, but Daud just jerks his chin and starts off in another direction.

“Come on, then. I haven’t needed the shrines yet, but I know where a few of them are.”

“What, now?” Corvo asks in surprise, and bites back the second most obvious question. _With you?_

“You have something better to do?” Daud calls back.

And Corvo...really doesn’t.

So this time, he follows.

* * *

 

He shouldn’t have, as it turns out, because Daud, for whatever reason, takes that one instance of acceptance and runs with it.

It’s useful in its own way, Corvo will acknowledge. He learns magic in leaps and bounds, far faster than he would have bothered with on his own. His power is bolstered by Daud’s unerring ease in finding runes and the man’s strange tendency of dropping bone charms in his lap like some overgrown cat.

There’s a joy in learning it, as long as he learns it only for the joy and leaves behind thoughts of what he might have accomplished with it. He can shatter rock walls with wind, can harness time and see the world through the eyes of hounds and rats. He learns from Daud’s methods of sight and Blinking, but he never manages the pull that the Whalers used against him so successfully.

Then again, possession seems to baffle Daud entirely, for all that every attempt against him fails. Perhaps there are some things they’re not meant to share.

(The less said about the rat swarms, the better).

It becomes rare for him to wander into civilization without gaining a shadow, so perhaps he shouldn’t be as surprised as he is when Daud finally follows him home. Or rather, when Daud drops down in front of him from the roof one morning as he walks outside.

He’s well used to the man’s fondness for startling him by then, so when he blasts Daud to the ground and then leaps on top of him to bloody his nose, it’s entirely intentional.

It turns into more of a drawn out scuffle than he meant, because Daud still fights like a wildcat even when he’s laughing like a loon, and by the time they break apart Corvo has a few bloody spots of his own.

“What are you even _doing_ here?” He finally spits, an overflow of confusion that’s been building for all these months of too-easy contact.

“I can’t just come by to say hello?” Daud grins at him, all teeth.

“You could, but you aren’t.” Corvo decides, quite sure. It's a question that's been building for a while. “What are you getting out of this? Talking to me, any of it?”

Daud stares at him for a second or two, eyes glittering, but some of his more violent energy seems to settle.

“At first I wanted to see what it would take to make you angry,” He says, blunt as ever, “but if you haven’t stabbed me yet, there doesn’t seem to be much left that will.”

That’s true enough, even if some faint irritation sparks at being tested like a feral hound. Corvo narrows his eyes. “And now?”

It takes a long moment, but finally Daud's the one that looks away, his expression flattening out. “I spent the last decade with my Whalers, you know. There were over sixty of us living together in Rudshore by the end there.”

That’s all he says. But perhaps that’s enough.

“Well,” Corvo sighs, and gives up, “you might as well come in, if you’re already here.”

“Oh, no.” Daud says, and he’s back to teeth again. _“You_ should come further out, and with your sword this time. When was the last time you practiced?”

Corvo’s going to regret this, he just knows it.

* * *

 

Permission given, Daud begins to show up with surprising regularity. He still wanders off constantly between one hour and the next, and sometimes disappears for weeks at a time, but Corvo starts to expect him more often than not.

His swordwork begins to improve again, now that he has a reason and, more impotantly, motivation to practice. It takes a few weeks, but then he starts to win more bouts than he loses and Daud stops fighting with any semblance of politeness.

(Fighting when they’re both using powers is a _mess_ , and it’s delightful.)

He doesn’t notice how much his strength has returned, and how much better he feels for it, until one afternoon when he looks up from a book and blinks at the half-finished plate of food that he’d been absently eating from for the last hour or so. He certainly hadn’t put it there.

A slow meal, and still not the amount he would have eaten in his youth, but it’s twice what he would have managed even a month ago, and the nausea hasn’t yet made an appearance.

Daud had been doing it for weeks, he realizes as he thinks back. The man had a tendency to carry food with him everywhere, tucked in his pockets, and somewhere along the way the gifts of bone charms had turned into shoving snacks at him whenever they weren’t rolling bloody in the sand.

He just doesn’t remember when he'd started accepting.

He rubs at his chest, something aching behind his breastbone, and then turns back to his book.

* * *

 

He returns Daud’s snooping and follows the man home once he realizes the man must have settled to stay nearby for so long. The assassin had followed his example and stayed along the cliffs, though the cave he’d chosen was still enough of a walk to keep some distance between them.

The cave looks bare and rather cold when he peaks inside, hardly lived in, but Daud bounds out to tackle him cheerfully enough, so he supposes it counts as home for now.

It _is_ cold at night, he learns when he’s caught there once by a rainstorm and sleeps there instead. But Daud has firewood stocked away and a good supply of various alcoholic beverages, so it rather evens out in the end.

He’s a morose drunk and he knows it, so he tries not to overindulge. But Daud’s a chatty one, with plenty of stories to tell–ones that don’t involve murder, even–and he manages to earn a snicker once or twice.

“I never did find that portrait.” The assassin sighs and flops out on his back, arms spread, loose-limbed and easy. “Fucking Sokolov.”

Corvo snorts and drinks to that, but Daud’s open posture sticks with him for another moment. It’s a rather vulnerable position for an assassin to take, especially considering Corvo still has his sword on his belt. But then, neither of them would be drinking around an enemy either.

Maybe this is what trust looks like, with them.

He glares at the cup in his hand, but it’s mostly in resignation at this point. He has no idea what he’s doing.

* * *

 

He keeps an eye on news from Dunwall. He knows Daud does as well. They can’t really help it. The blockade keeps them from any real details, but some always slip through–from refugees, most often.

One day, though, the news is more official: Hiram Burrows, their illustrious Lord Regent, has located their dear, missing heir to the throne, Lady Emily Kaldwin.

It isn’t the lies inherent in the proclamation that stick in Corvo’s craw, not really. It’s the reminder. It’s the knowledge that Emily is out there, shuffling from one danger to another in the hands of liars and usupers, and nothing will be done to stop them.

Daud finds him sitting on the edge of the cliffs that night, legs over the edge as he watches the waves below.

“Unless Sokolov pulls off a miracle, that city’s going to sink.” He says, and drops down to sit by Corvo without waiting for a response. “Burrows can rally for support all he likes. He’s not going to have anything left to rule soon.”

“The city won’t just take him. Emily’s in there, too.” Corvo reminded him dully.

“For now.” Daud shrugged one shoulder. “But I hear Empresses are supposed to be crafty. And if she hasn’t figured out by now that she’s going to have to save herself, then she never will.”

It’s not meant as an insult–Corvo can _tell_ it isn’t, after this long. But he still clenches his hands in his lap until his bones creak. “She shouldn’t have to. I should be there."

“Don’t be an idiot.” Daud says, sharp as a whipcrack, and meets Corvo’s glare with one of his own. “You’re feeling maudlin right now, but nothing’s _changed._ You’d have died months ago fighting some noblemens’ battles for them, and she’d still be exactly the same place she is now.”

“I’m a coward.” Corvo says, and it burns in his chest like a curse, like a release. Like truth

“Maybe.” Daud shrugs. “But I’d be a live coward over a dead martyr any day.”

That’s Corvo’s usual inclination, and to hear it so echoed helps drag him out of his fugue at least a little. Still, he can’t help, but wonder. “I might have been able to change things. Even just enough. The city wasn’t beyond all hope.”

“What are you looking for, Corvo?” Daud sighs at him, and the use of his name is rare enough that Corvo looks over. “Everything I could say, you’ve already thought of, I’m sure. And even you can’t be responsible for the fate of an entire city.”

“I was responsible for _her_.” He says, and admitting it scores all his wounds raw again.

“Then you failed her.” Daud says, not cruel, but still blunt as a slap. Something lurches in Corvo’s gut even as his pained thoughts fall quiet. “There’s nothing to be done about it now. Let it go.”

It’s not as simple as it sounds. He’s been trying since he got here. But he says nothing more, just sits and breathes in the cold and the salt, and Daud sits with him all the while.

* * *

 

Things become both easier and harder after that.

It’s easier to turn his thoughts away, perhaps, to wander in the sun and the surf without lingering on the things he’d left behind. Maybe speaking out loud is what he’d needed, painful as it had been. His mind doesn’t always allow him peace, though. As the day hours become easier, he begins to wake up more often during the night, sweating and panting and shaking to his bones.

He doesn’t dream of Dunwall or Emily, at least. Small mercies. No, now when he sleeps, he dreams of Coldridge.

It seems a bit sudden, but he has to wonder if it’s because he’s only just now relaxed enough to sleep comfortably. Perhaps the nightmares have simply been waiting for him to let his guard down.

He doesn’t think it’s much of an improvement, all things considered. But it’s something.

* * *

 

More and more pale faces join the local crowds in the towns. Most of the time it’s clear enough from skin color to tell the escapees from Dunwall, and accent gives it away on most of the rest. Nobody says anything about it, though. The refugees are already there, anyway. No point in trying to send them back, and most aren’t so cruel as to want to.

It’s more stressful for both Corvo and Daud, as Dunwall expatriates are far more likely to recognize either of them. Still, they’re good at keeping out of sight, and they’re not surprised by the situation. It’s only expected for Dunwall’s few survivors to flee, like rats from a sinking ship.

They see a man in the market one day. Or rather, the man sees them.

That’s rare enough to catch Corvo’s attention–most people never look up. But this man, though clearly not Serkonan, doesn’t look like he’s thinking of yelling for a Watchman or an Overseer. He looks...wistful, and he’s looking mostly at Daud.

Corvo nudges Daud with his elbow and feels him stiffen up entirely when the assassin sees their observer.

Neither Daud nor the stanger move, though. They simply stare at each other for a few long, odd moments and then the man bows, just slightly, one hand in a fist over his heart. Corvo feels more than hears Daud’s shuddering breath at that, but then the man turns around and goes, slipping away until he’s lost in the crowd.

“Who was that?” Corvo asks.

“It doesn’t matter.” Daud says, brusk.

That doesn’t sound like the truth, but Corvo doesn’t ask again. They’ve both learned where not to push.

* * *

 

If there were ever a day Daud might be able to rile him to violence, the anniversary of Jessamine’s death would be it. Luckily, the assassin knows better by now, or just doesn’t care to try anymore.

He lets Corvo have most of the day to himself, then shows up in the evening chill with a bottle of excellent whiskey. Corvo sighs, lets him in, and resolves not to worry about overindulgence this time.

He wakes up warm and a bit uncomfortable; there’s a weight digging into his chest, and something is tickling his nose with every breath. He peeks one eye open and nearly jolts in surprise when he finds Daud sprawled out in the bed with him, the man's shoulder across his chest and head tucked beside his neck.

He stares in confusion, uncertain how they ended up in such a situation. But they’re both still wearing most of their clothes, his head is throbbing, and Daud is snoring ever so slightly, not likely to move any time soon. Shifting himself really feels like too much effort, so he closes his eyes and goes back to sleep.

It’s later, when he wakes up to a glass of water by the bed and Daud gone entirely, that he realizes he made it through the night without bad dreams.

* * *

 

The city doesn’t publish anything official, but everyone from the dockhands to the bankers hears of it when an inspection finds a swarm of rats in the sewers near the docks. Rats aren’t uncommon in such a place, of course, but rumor had these ones as larger than normal and rather...aggressive.

“Have you thought of where you’d go, if you had to leave again?” Daud asks him grimly when they hear the news.

“Of course.” Corvo swallows. “But I’d hoped I wouldn’t have the need.”

“Somehow, I don’t think we’re that lucky.” Daud sounds almost as tired as Corvo feels.

They buy far more food and supplies than they’d planned for on this trip, and they make sure most of it will keep.

* * *

 

Maybe it’s the rats that push him to it, in the end. They do have a way of instilling a sense of urgency. Or maybe Corvo is just tired of sleepless nights.

Whatever his excuse, he waits for a night when Daud stays late, when they have a few drinks in them as they play a few lazy games of cards. Then, when the man looks like he’s thinking of heading home, Corvo says, “You don’t have to leave if you don’t want to.”

Daud blinks at him. “What?”

Corvo shifts, uncomfortable, but blunt honesty is usually the best way with Daud.

“I sleep better with someone next to me. And you’re really the only one I could ask, at this point.” He admits. “If you’d rather not, I understand, but I thought–”

“I mean– If you want–” Daud stumbles in his confusion, a rare occurence, but then his head lifts and his gaze narrows, the sort of suspicious stare that Corvo hasn’t seen in many months. _“Just_ sleeping?”

 _Ah._ Corvo wrinkles his nose at him deliberately and watches Daud relax a bit. “Yes, just sleeping.”

He’s not felt inclined to any sort of tryst or romance since he arrived, and he doesn’t anticipate that changing any time soon. Still, he makes a note to step carefully with Daud; it’s clear that even the thought of it sets him on edge.

Daud thinks about it for a minute, then two. Then he finally replies, carefully, “I’m...not opposed.”

“Oh, the enthusiasm.” Corvo says dryly, but a smile tugs at his lips all the same.

They shed their weapons and most of their outer clothing, which is a production in itself, and there’s a small moment of awkwardness when Daud stops at the bed as though unsure how to continue. But he follows readily enough once Corvo slips in and reaches out a hand to bring him in after.

He offers his back first, lets Daud press close and curl up behind him in the small space, and it doesn’t really feel vulnerable even though it should. It’s...comfortable. _They’re_ comfortable, together, as strange as that thought is, and he feels Daud drop off more quickly than he expected, the uncertain stiffness of his muscles fading quickly back into his usual loose sprawl.

Corvo lingers for a while in the slowly building warmth beneath the blankets, enjoying the gentle press of the body behind him and the soft breaths barely ruffling his hair.

Maybe he doesn’t deserve to feel peace like this, but he’s going to appreciate it while it lasts.

* * *

 

They’re together more often than not now, many nights as well as days often spent together or nearby. But they need space from each other as well, and either he or Daud often wander off to the towns alone, each taking a few hours with only their thoughts.

And then Daud comes back one day in a steady, determined trot, the late afternoon sun throwing his shadow ahead of him like a warning. His expression sends Corvo to his feet.

“They found a body near the dockyard.” He says. “Bleeding from the eyes.”

That’s all the rumor says, but that’s enough. Even in this one is false, it’s only a matter of time now. Without a cure...

They’re immune to the plague by grace of their Marks–Daud is certain of this after his long stint in the Flooded District–but that doesn’t mean they’re unaffected. They’ve been living mostly off of money from pickpocketing, so if the rest of Serkonos collapses around them, they’ll be just as short of food as anyone else.

They could try sticking it out, but leaving seems easier at this point. Leaving to set up somewhere the plague hasn’t hit yet, this time with a plan to outlast it once it follows them again.

“Do you want to try the other side of the island?” Daud asks doubtfully as they pack. “Or just head straight for a steamship?”

They’ve not really discussed this either, but there seems to be no doubt that, wherever they’re going, they’re going together. It makes Corvo smile even in the midst of it all.

“Seems worth a try. I’d like to stay on Serkonos if we can.” He says, and thinks through a rough plan. “We can hit a few noble houses on the way out for the coin, then see if anyone’s selling farmland far enough away from the cities. If not, well...there’s always Tyvia. Maybe the rats don’t like cold.”

“Ugh.” Daud says, because they’re not the only ones, but they have the rough outlines of a plan and that settles just a bit of Corvo’s nerves.

They spend one last night in that hut on the cliffs, curled up close together under the covers as they listen to the distant crash of the waves. Corvo doesn’t sleep all that well, and he doesn’t think Daud does either, but they both lie still and let the night pass. 

In the early hours of dawn, with tiredness weighing on his eyes and his heart, Corvo can’t help but feel that the past he keeps trying to leave behind is doing its best to chase him anyway.

He doesn’t mention it to Daud in the morning. It’s not a helpful sort of thought. He just eats and makes one last sweep through the hut to be sure they haven’t forgotten anything, and then joins Daud outside to shoulder the packs.

Daud turns to face him as he does, the early morning sunlight falling directly across his face. He looks a bit older, even just from the few years Corvo has known him, grey touching further at his temples and deepening the lines of his face.

He couldn’t be considered lovely by any means, but his face is now very familiar, and very much a comfort. Corvo might be leaving again, but at least this time he can bring the most important pieces with him.

“Ready, then?” He asks.

“Always.” Daud says, and it even sounds like he means it.

Shoulder to shoulder, they start down the road.

 


End file.
